I don't really know where my ideas come from. I start with a time and a place. That's what I need to get started, and an intellectual question.

I was a stepchild in two different families. The hardest thing about being a stepchild is you know that in some way everything would be easier if you didnt exist.

If I had a view like this to look down on every day, I would have the energy and inspiration to conquer the world. The trouble is, when you most need such a view, no one gives it to you.

Read at the level at which you want to write. Reading is the nourishment that feeds the kind of writing you want to do.

Goon Squad' took about three years to write and that's the short end. My second novel, 'Look at Me,' took six years.

I don’t want to fade away, I want to flame away - I want my death to be an attraction, a spectacle, a mystery. A work of art.

Because you can't write habitually and well all the time, you have to be willing to write badly. That's how you get the regularity that enables you to be present for the good stuff.

Reading is the nourishment that lets you do interesting work.

I'm always happy," Sasha said. "Sometimes I just forget.

The answers were maddeningly absent—it was like trying to remember a song that you knew made you feel a certain way, without a title, artist, or even a few bars to bring it back.

Vinegar: that's what fear smells like.

Once bitten, totally smitten.

Not much in the world ends up being the same as it started out, unless of course it had a very short life cycle.

When you become a happier human being as a result of letting go of certain people or things, that's the universe's way of letting you know it was the right choice.

I guess it’s a good thing that we don’t know what we don’t know

True prayer always receives what it asks for-or something better.

While men compete in war, there will be warriors. While there are warriors, there will be princes among warriors. Among the princes will be kings, and among the kings an emperor.

Dignity is often a veil between us and the real truth of things.

Scientists are not the paragons of rationality, objectivity, openmindedness and humility that many of them might like others to believe.

Philosophical questions and modes of thought just seem natural to me. They mesh with the way my mind works.

Do we really want to invest $50 billion of hard earned taxpayers money in what is essentially a video entertainment system?